The Encounter
by Half Mart
Summary: Two marine privates out on patrol are ambushed by servants of the Covenant. A bloody and gory firefight ensues. Short story, though very good.


1Walking through the closely enclosed jungle of bushes, barely able to see one foot in front of the other, dreading the feel of unidentified tendrils caressing my face with their sticky, scratchy feel I pressed onward. I started jogging through the thick underbrush, across the alien landscape. My feet sank into pools of slime filled with decaying vegetation. All around me huge hills looked as if they were on fire, glowing in the last rays of the setting sun. From afar the hills looked bare of anything though on a closer examination you could tell they were covered by thick underbrush. As I pressed onward up a hill I spotted the human military post, my outpost, crowning the top of a nearby hill. It's twin missile launchers were visible, rising over the houses.

In the year 2049 a spacecraft named United entered the dimension called hyperspace. Human colonies were soon set up on every planet in our solar system. But then, our ships were fired on by an alien race, calling them selves the Covenant. Vessels of the International Fleet returned fire.

Millions of young men and women fresh out of high school joined the International Fleet ready to zap Cormics. The largest fleet in human history was put together. Human scouts soon located the Cormic solar system and we invaded their planets. I grew up listening to fighter pilots discussing space battles at far off planets, at my uncle's store. When I finished high school I joined the Marines. I was shipped off to the front, at the battle for Kar'ar. 41,000 people died there and I helped to stack their charred corpses. There I also met my friend Brent, we went through a lot. Then there were several uprisings on captured Cormic planets and so Brent and I were ordered to help put down the resistance. Even though it was near dusk, I was sweating and my combat boots were covered in green slush that seeped in through the rubber soles. I shifted my semi-automatic KG-9 blaster to a more comfortable position on my shoulder to continue. Suddenly my comm. unit cackled to life with static. "Rover 6, to Rover1, come in Jason!"

"Roger!", I answered.

"Jason, I need back up, I'm receiving fire," yelled Brent, panic evident in his voice.

"All right, maintain your position, wait for me and try to fine a hiding placed," I ordered.

I marched quickly toward the sound of gunfire. Then the gunfire stopped. I ran forward following a trail of bloody footsteps and I nearly tripped over Brent's mutilated corpse lying in a bush. His eyes where wide open in surprise. Suddenly a noise behind me startled me. Behind me a Cormic solider appeared from the brush and opened fired with his " burp" gun. Cornices were servants I cut him down in a sheet of bullets. He looked remarkably human except he was seven feet tall with green skin and bulging eyes. Suddenly four more surrounded me, grinning and toying with their guns. I opened fire killing 3 and then I was in close quarters ripping with my knife. I feigned with my knife and the Cormic in front of me moved up to block using his gun as a club. Then I brought my knife down, piercing through the thin layer of uniform into his gut. I fired a couple of bursts at the remaining two, and they also went down. Suddenly three or four more leaped from the underbrush. Thrusting and dodging I used my gun as a club and swung. I smashed a soldier's head into bloody pulp and he collapsed then one Cormic bolder than the rest charged me. My knife pierced his chest and spine and erupted out of his back in a fountain of blood and gore. A desire awoke within me. I would not let these monsters pass and get to my buddy. He was my friend and I did not plan on leaving his side. "I hope you've gone to a better place than this bloody field, Brent, I muttered to myself." Hardly aware of my wounds I kept fighting in desperation. I fired until my gun became almost too hot to hold and burnt my hand. I used my knife when my ammunition ran out, leaping and dodging over the corpses of my enemies. As more kept coming I built a rampart of the dead. I died, next to my friend, outnumbered and surrounded, on an alien planet far from home.


End file.
